Monthly Archives: May 2009

I had to put aside my regular knitting once again to make baby/kid stuff. My good friends Jeff and Morgan are having their first baby! I have known Jeff since middle school, and Morgan was one of my college roommates, although I am not responsible for them getting together. So this is a very important baby. Oh, at some time I blogged about going to their Hut wedding on Mt. Hood, but maybe that was on my old blog. Anyway, I had a bunch of ideas for presents, but didn’t move on any of them. Of course, a week ago or so, I emailed Jeff to find out the sex of the baby and realized that the baby was due in two weeks! I had to get moving!

Here’s what I decided on:

Yeah, not a very impressive display. But here’s what it looks like hanging up!:

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes and Lamb’s Pride Worsted. I used leftovers from my Mosaic Yoke Jacket and my Road to Golden.

I used size 4 needles for everything. Since I used leftover yarn my only cost was less than $1.50 for dowels. Of course it took $8 to ship it…

I had loved this when I first saw it, but didn’t even think about making it until a week ago. I was on such a time schedule that it did start to feel like a bit of a chore. But I can’t believe I finished it in a week! I did have to sit at the court house yesterday for about four hours while contesting a traffic ticket. I did all my I-cord branches and some of my leaves there. Oh, and I lost my case and got a parking ticket while there. Bummer.

I had to make a few substitutions on color when I ran out of dark green and when I didn’t want to use the branch color in the birds. The pattern was very well-written. Very precise. The only thing I changed, was to continue the same shaping in the head that I did in the body. I like having ssks and k2togs to shape the head instead of doing all k2togs, like in a hat. But that’s it. I also made the shortest version of the mobile.

Here’s some more shots of it.

I hope they like it!

On a random note, here was the view from the front of my work the other day:

That’s a cell phone picture, so not great. The Church of Scientology owns that workshop/space and are always doing weird work in there. I think they were fixing up Ron L. Hubbard’s car in there once. They are moving what looks to be a zero-gravity simulator/gyroscope onto this truck. Later in the day when I walked by, they were moving some control panels. One said Gravitron and the other said Motion Control. Weird. Don’t tell me they’re not building a space ship. Maybe they’re just working on carnival rides for a company picnic or something. =)

I’ve been slogging through a sweater, but it is taking forever! But I did just finish up another project that I’m eager to show off.

It is the #31 Lace Stockings by Mari Muinonen/Tikru that were in the Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2009.

The yarn was Knit Picks Essential Kettle-Dyed in Eggplant. I used a bit more than two balls. It took me about a month to do the pair.

There was a bit of a delay initially because Vogue didn’t publish all of the charts in the magazine. And there was some lag time in getting it up on the website. They went pretty quickly. A nice thing about lace socks is there are so few stitches. I usually use DPNs but I used two circulars for most of these. The lace pattern on the front doesn’t divide in half easily, so it was better to have them all on one needle.

If I were going to do them again, I would use a smaller gauge than recommended for the foot and ankle. I went with 6st/in and the foot was a little loose for me. I went down a needle size for the ankle and went back to the called for needle for the calf. It was exciting not to have to make these bigger than called for. I would also have put in one or two more repeats of the main lace pattern. I think I would have liked a taller stocking.

And I thought the Bettie’s Stockings looked trampy!

Yikes! I imagine I’ll be wearing these with longer skirts.

There were a few small mistakes in the charts. On the left side of Row 19 on Chart 2, there is, if I remember correctly, an extra stitch. Also on the left tip of the leaf/flower, it is sometimes a K3tog and sometimes a K3tog tbl.

I had some difficulty with the elastic at the top of the leg. I first tried weaving clear elastic bands through the “eyelet rows” at the top of the stocking. But there aren’t really any eyelet rows, and that just wasn’t working for me. I ended up using some black elastic sewing thread. On a non-cabled row, I would thread the elastic through the stitches on the needle like a lifeline. Then I would knit the stitches as normal. Except if there was a yo in the row that I thread through, then I knit the stitch and the elastic together. This way the thread is pulled up with the stitch and is not just going horizontally across the yarnover. It was too late for the first stocking, so I just thread the elastic through the back of the fabric in maybe 5 sections. I just knotted the elastic together at the end of the rounds. I needed to make it quite snug to stay up on my leg. If there was no elastic, the stocking would eventually just make its way down to my ankle. And by eventually I mean, like in two minutes. Here’s a close-up of the first stocking where I didn’t put the elastic in while knitting:

You can still see the elastic, but I decided it was good enough. I tried knitting the elastic thread in, but I wasn’t able to pull the elastic taut enough to do any good.

Overall I’m pleased with them. I hope they get some use. Other than that I just started my Petal Halter, and am still working on the Mosiac Yoke Jacket. I also have a baby present to get to really quickly. It is going to be a girl and she’s due in two weeks! I have no idea what to make!